


My Empire of Dirt

by Hannahmayski



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dai Li - Freeform, Earth Kingdom (Avatar), F/M, Fire Nation Royal Family, Gen, Kimika was the original sword wielding vigilante, Murder, The Blue Spirit - Freeform, Women Being Awesome, also, and i love her, ila is incredible, kimika says 'fuck sozin', listen someone had to give these characters names, sociopathic tendencies, someone has to cry about sozin's lovely wife and the earth queen, tyranny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 10:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18658519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannahmayski/pseuds/Hannahmayski
Summary: No war will be waged. Not by her nation. Not as long as she’s still breathing.Or, Sozin's wife is not a complacent bystander in Sozin's scheming of the Hundred-year war. Sozin is no longer fit to rule, and she is the only one willing to get her hands dirty.





	My Empire of Dirt

**Author's Note:**

> Ila - 50th Earth Queen 
> 
> Kimika - Sozin's wife
> 
> Sozin - a bitch
> 
> It's 12am idk what's happening. Editing is for people who are awake and that oh boy that's not me !!

Ila meets Sozin, and she, for lack of a better word,  _ hates  _ him. 

He gazes down at her, disappointment etched into the permanent lines that mark his face, and she is suddenly overwhelmed with a _feeling_.

What the feeling is she doesn’t know, but it hits her like she is suddenly dunked under a bucket of ice water. A deep-seated feeling of dread that catches the breath in her throat. 

She’s not scared, but her intuition has never failed her before and the people can call her paranoid all they want, but Ila’s gut instinct has not been wrong before and looking up at the ghastly face of the Fire Nation’s leader she knows something is deeply, deeply wrong. 

Their first meeting goes about as well as Ila had expected it to. Sozin barely looks her in the eyes as she talks, shuffling trade agreements and her ideas to improve immigration policies she’d drafted before she’d left her home in the Earth Kingdom in her hands. His eyes wander around his own meeting hall as though he’s never seen it before, and when he finally  _ looks  _ at her, his eyes shine a dull, uninterested yellow. He looks at her, but she knows he’s not really seeing her. 

“Oh,” Ila gripes. She crosses a leg over her knee and pretends to be interested in folding the corner of her drafted immigration notes. “Does the topic bore you, Sozin?” 

He immediately stiffens at the use of his given name, his back going ram-rod straight, and he finally looks at her like she’s something more than a commoner. 

He opens his mouth, but she holds up a hand, effectively silencing him. “I did not travel across the globe, just so I could see your face, Fire Lord Sozin. I came here because I believe that a strong relationship between our countries can only strengthen both our countries. Now, if you’re not going to listen to me then I  _ will  _ leave.” 

Sozin’s eyes flare for just a moment, barely noticeable and that _feeling_ comes back twice as strong. The niggling in the back of her mind grows until it’s a throbbing beacon of  _ something isn't right   _ that she can't ignore.

“Start offering better arrangements, and then perhaps Earth Queen Ila, I’ll start listening,” Sozin bites back like a child but it’s all wrong. It’s flat and empty. 

“This is a  _ discussion,  _ I believe, and that generally involves the engagement of two people and thus far I’ve been forced to do all the talking. This involves your people too, they can benefit immensely from a close relationship with the Earth, from more jobs to farming opportunities, or even to travel.” 

Sozin scoffs, a rough noise that tears itself from the back of his throat like someone forcibly tore it out of him. His eyes drift again to a portrait of himself hung at the end of the wall. It’s ridiculous, from its size to just the exaggeration of his power, and Ila can’t stop the sudden urge to set fire to every portrait ever made of her back home. 

“My country does not need  _ your  _ help,” he says. He slowly peels his eyes from marvelling at his own face and meets Ila’s own. Especially not from  _ Earth." _

The bad feeling continues to pound behind her eyelids, a horrible feeling in her stomach that makes it churn, and he thinks she knows what it is. 

It’s not a particular thing Sozin has said if she ignores his palpable hatred for her country, or even his vacant words and haunting eyes. It’s just  _ him.  _ It’s everything about him. 

“As you wish then, Sozin,” she says. The papers are crushed in her hand and all things considered, she should not take as much pleasure from the rage that bubbles at the surface of Sozin's calm at Ila’s perceived abuse of her powerful position, but Sozin is a bad leader, and she already knows that for the Fire Nation, and for the rest of the world, his reign of terror is only just beginning. 

She walks out, her dark green robes flow behind her and the two Dai Li agents she brought with her meet her stride with a quiet ease. 

 

 

Ila knows that it isn’t just her, that the feeling of dread is not just a product of her own gut. She knows as her Dai Li agents look around her room, that they feel the same. She’s never seen either of them this tense before but both of their shoulders are drawn near taut from their worry. 

She didn’t hand pick these two agents just because she likes the way their names roll off her tongue. She chose them because she knows that they’re both incredibly skilled, smart and most importantly in her opinion, incredibly observant. 

Ru and Zhi, Ila knows their names to be, and while new in the 'personal bodyguard for the queen' area of their work, they’re far from new in the field. 

“What is it?” she asks eventually. She signs away the last sentence of her  _ new  _ immigration terms before looking up. 

Ru’s young, smaller face is early entirely obscured under the thick mop of black hair that's barely restrained to the single plait running down her back, and her face is a careful mask of indifference, but she it’s starkly different from the sheer lack of emotion that Sozin offered and the dread sinks into her bones all over again. 

Her agents are human, that she knows. She’s seen them laugh, smile, cry, and she knows who’s friend’s with who and who can’t stand each other. As inhuman they portray themselves to be while working, she knows it's simply because that's a requirement of their job. 

“Forgive me, your majesty,” Ru says after a moment. Her voice is echoes off the wooden walls of the room. 

“Never mind that,” Ila replies. “What is it? I have had a feeling of dread since my eyes had the unfortunate chore of gazing upon the  _ beloved  _ Fire Lord and you, my dears, have been no better. I have never seen anyone as tense as the two of you.” 

Her words bring their attention to their muscles and Zhi takes several near invisible movements to loosen himself up. 

Ru sends Zhi a quick glance - a thousand words in less than a second, and a skill Ila wishes she could possess with a person she trusted as much as her agents trust their partners - and Ru lifts her head just enough that her steely grey eyes are visible. 

“I had a feeling as well your majesty. I think we should not stay the week,” she says and that unnerves her further, but she keeps her face passive. 

Ru is scared of nothing, except apparently  _ Fire Lord Sozin.  _ Or perhaps scared isn’t the right word. Wary, maybe. Or possibly just _aware_ of what someone like him can do. They’ve seen it not so long ago in Earth Queen Riva. She didn’t care. Not about the people she served, not about the loyal officers under her command, not about the children of her country. And that lack of care, can lead to a dark path that one can’t come back from.

A 'fall from grace' some call it, but Ila quite likes 'rise of a tyrant' as a more accurate description. 

“Zhi?” she asks. He takes a moment, collecting his thoughts, never one to spare a single word for something he does not mean. She lets him mull it over. 

“He has a wife, your majesty. Perhaps you’ll find reason in her.”  Ila nods, running a hand through her short hair, chopped neatly to just over a centimetre from her scalp in a way that her advisors hate, and Ila herself absolutely loves.  

Kimika, is her name. A beautiful woman, standing as tall as her husband, and while a nonbender, she holds a title as a rather infamous swordmaster, particularly with the _shuangdao_.

Upon greeting Ila to the palace, she had looked her in the eyes - bright and aware and nothing like her husbands’. 

Perhaps, an intelligent woman like herself will understand Ila’s proposal. 

Surely, she will listen and perhaps Ila’s trip across the globe will have not been for nothing.

If uniting the nations, even for a little while meant that Sozin's ambitions were halted, then it was worth the chance.

 

 

Kimika is not a woman to be found tucked away in her room, preoccupied with something mundane. Instead, she is busy, stripped of her usual heavy robes, down to a light pair of pants and a shirt that has to be a man’s, but it fills out her bare shoulders perfectly. Her makeup as perfect, and her hair is tucked into a neat bun as she leads Ila away from the palace rooms out to the gardens. Her bare feet are soundless as they walk.

It’s so intrinsically different to Ba Sing Se’s gardens. It’s silent aside from the soft quacking of turtle ducks in the pond and the pit pat of water falling from a nearby fountain. It’s peaceful, and Ila immediately knows that if not for Kimika’s love of the garden, it would not exist at all. 

“I must apologise,” She says. She watches her son, Azulon, in the corner of the garden, gripping a tiny wooden sword in his hand and swinging it with reckless abandon at an imaginary opponent.  “My husband was not always like this."

“Does he listen to you,” Ila asks, because if Sozin won’t even listen to the supposed love of his life then Ila knows that her gamble is useless. 

Sozin has something planned, and that stone in her gut doesn’t want to find out what it is. Ila hoped that establishing more of a political relationship could delay whatever plan Sozin's 'fall from grace' will turn out to be, but at Kimika’s face - empty and exhausted as she slowly turns to face her - she knows it’s a useless endeavour. 

“Not since Azulon was born.” 

“My lady,” Ila starts, and she knows that speaking ill of the Fire Lord in his _own home_ is suicide but if Kimika has noticed this change in her husband’s behaviour, she must know something is  _ wrong.  _ Surely, it would be a greater wrong to say nothing at all. 

Ila’s gut is never wrong, and right now, that  _feeling_ has never been stronger. 

“I can’t claim to know your husband, but I don’t believe that his plans for the future are in the best interest of your nation.” 

Kimika’s gaze drifts away from her again, glazed over and deep in thought. 

She looks back at Azulon, tiny arms flapping as he chases a bird, and she doesn’t answer. But really, her silence is an answer enough. 

 

 

Ila leaves early. 

She tries again to meet with Sozin again, of course. She can’t give up after one meeting, but it churns up nothing but frustration. 

She comes away knowing only one thing, that whatever it is that Sozin’s planning its real. It’s more than just Ila’s instincts. It’s the way he gazes at the portraits in the gallery, the way he talks about  _her_ Earth Kingdom people as if they’re  _ dogs,  _ but the way he talks about the Air Nomads sends a shiver down her spine. She’s not scared of him. At least not in a way that she can explain, Instead, she’s more scared of what he’s capable of, of how far he can fall.

She comes away with barely anything beyond a feeling and a hunch. Zhi and Ru stand on either side of her as they depart the Fire Nation, their ship slowly pulling away from the port, tugged along by a gentle breeze. 

She can see Kimika in her mind’s eye, strong, and broken. Hopeful and yet stripped of hope. Beautiful and hiding an ugly truth. 

She isn’t sure if Kimika can  _ do  _ anything, or even if Ila herself can do anything to stop Sozin's fall, but she knows Kimika’s the only one who can do anything at all. 

 

 

Kimika has never been particularly murderous, despite her intense love of swordsmanship and martial arts. Killing is not a fantasy that she ponders about, nor something that she would ever take pride in, and yet here she is  _ considering it.  _

Sozin leans against the railing, Roku by his side, and he's finally,  _ finally _ revealing that plan that’s been festering inside him for all these years. The plot that’s twisted him into a man who’s not the man she loved, not the man who she wanted to father her children. 

Kimika stands, hidden behind a pillar not to far away. She doesn’t dare move, as she realises that she honestly isn't sure how Sozin would react to her eavesdropping. Would he scald her like a child? Beat her? Refuse to speak to her? Brush it off? She takes a deep breath,  strains her ears and listens. 

Roku shuts him down and walks away, his anger at the mere suggestion is more than obvious, but if Roku claims to know Sozin as well as Kimika then he knows a few short words will not stop him. 

It’s war her husband wants. 

_ War.  _

It should frighten her, terrify her, shake her to her core. She should be crippled with shock, tears on the verge of spilling knowing that while he sleeps, her husband dreams of ruining a perfect world, their children's futures and bathing in the blood of those left in his wake, but she is not. 

She is not surprised. She is not confused. Instead, she knows what she must do, and she doesn’t feel as nearly as bad about it as she should. 

 

 

Murder is not a fantasy of Kimika’s. She doesn’t dream about it, nor does she wish to bask in the blood of millions, like her husband apparently has been fantasising about even as she slept by his side, comforted by his presence. 

She is not stupid, and deep down, she knows that she is expendable to him, and if she were to try to stop him, it wouldn’t be much to get her to  _ disappear.  _

But she must stop him. Every other person nods their head with his requests, muttering 'yes sir’s' and ‘of course my lord’s no matter the request, and she knows no one else is going to tell him no, and no one else is going to stop him. 

She sits at the table for what she knows will be their last dinner as a family. She knows that she’ll be leaving her only child parent-less, and she admits, the idea of leaving her  _ child _ , her  _ flesh and blood,  _ hurts more than anything. 

She knows she’ll never forgive herself for abandoning him, but she can’t bring him with her. She’ll be homeless, a fugitive, forever on the run for _murder_ , and that’s not a life she can drag him down. 

Azulon is safe in the palace, and young enough that perhaps he will barely remember her when he is are older. Perhaps this way, he won't be able to miss her. She's already asked the Fire Sages to take responsibility for her son, but it feels like a hollow request. 

She swallows another bite and feels sick. She looks at little Azulon's face, innocent and tiny and caught up in the middle of an issue that's so beyond anything he would be able to comprehend. It's  _unfair._  

Maybe there is another way than this, but there isn’t one that Kimika can see.  She loves Azulon, but if she does not go through with this, then there won’t _be_ a future for him, or any other child. 

They'll just be war. War and death and suffering. 

The night drags on, all the more ominous with the moonless sky, she notes, as she looks out of the tiny window of their en suite bathroom as she waits for Sozin to fall asleep in their bed.

She picks up her shuangdao, slinging it across her back and pulls her cloak around her shoulders clicking it into place once she hears his snores. She looks down at the theatre mask on the bench. It’s blue face smiles up at her with its fangs bared, _encouraging_ her. It’s fitting in a way that’s mostly sad. 

The Blue Spirit mask. A lonely spirit, and one that is often forgotten, despite his infamous reputation of crossing the spirit and mortal worlds to right the course of destiny, should a person’s actions interrupt the carefully crafted balance of their world. 

Kimika knows, this is the right thing. She knows that as long as Sozin lives, war will be his goal, and that is not something Kimika can accept. 

She lifts the mask to her face, tying the knot at the back of her head slowly, then pulls her duffel bag over her shoulders.

She steps out of the bathroom and closes the few metres between them, her booted feet silent on the wooden floors. Kimika stops at his bedside and as she looks down at his sleeping face, pulled into an angry frown even in sleep. She knows the man before her may look like the man she loved and the man she married, and the one she considered to be her best friend, but it is not him any longer. He is a shell of the person he used to be. A stranger to her eyes. A man driven only by power. 

She grabs his hair, holding his head down and places a knee on his chest but before he can react, she rips open his throat with a single slash of her knife. 

No war will be waged. Not by her nation. Not as long as she’s still breathing. 

Kimika turns, and walks out of the door and leaves her husband behind, leaves the blood bath  _ she  _ created, leaves behind her country and her home and her life and her own children. 

She leaves the Fire Nation, and  _Fire Lady Kimika_  is never seen again.

**Author's Note:**

> Ila is the 50th Earth Queen and my OC because the creators didn't give me much to work on in terms of their leaders.  
> Kimika is Sozin's wife whose name we also don't know and you know, instead of writing about already existing characters I'm out here, obsessing over the most obscure characters I can find lmao 
> 
> You can check out my earth kingdom monarchy rant [here!!!!](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SOsIJfv_946-EN9BpdpU0LGxWIBxRVpaKA6vwXOG2g0/edit?usp=sharing) (im gonna be posting a fic about the dai li soon so it's kinda focused on the monarchs and the development of the dia li throughout their respective reigns.)
> 
> Also I need to stop posting fics at midnight it's not good for my sleeping patterns. I should have been in bed hours ago im so tired??
> 
> Hmu:  
> [A twitter for writing](https://twitter.com/echoswriting)  
> [A twitter for fandom stuff](https://twitter.com/tinyecho_)  
> [Pillowfort!](https://www.pillowfort.io/Echowrites)
> 
> comments keep me going fam i love it so muchhhhhhhhh


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